A DAY ON THE ITCHEN 85 



so conspicuous an exception to universal ex- 

 perience of the timidity and wariness of his 

 kind. 



We seem to have wandered a little out of our 

 course towards a dry-fly day, but that is one 

 of the advantages of the art : there is usually 

 no hurry. However long you may linger over 

 breakfast, you generally arrive at the water 

 too early ; and then, again, the joys of anticipa- 

 tion are not to be despised. Lord Grey of 

 Fallodon confessed lately that during his public 

 career he was obliged to ration himself in the 

 pleasures of anticipation, and never allowed 

 himself to dwell at night upon thoughts of the 

 approaching fishing season until after the 1st 

 of January, for fear that his work should suffer. 

 Here is an extract from the address which he 

 delivered not long ago in the United States, 

 which is worth reading before our dry-fly day 

 begins : 



A 



You can get greatness, too, from ... a keen sense of 

 the beauty of the world and a love for it. I found it so 

 during the war. Our feelings were indeed roused by the 

 heroism of our people, but they were also depressed by the 

 suffering. In England every village was stricken, there 

 was grief in almost every house. The thought of the suffer- 

 ing, the anxiety for the future, destroyed all pleasure. It 

 came even between one's self and the page of the book 

 one tried to read. In those dark days I found some support 



